After the Washington Commanders' embarrassing loss on Thanksgiving day to the Dallas Cowboys, head coach Ron Rivera fired defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio. Will it make any difference? "Well, it's hard to say, they obviously have a lot of problems going on on defense right now," former Washington head coach Jay Gruden told Team 980's Chris Russell.
"The lack of pressure is a problem, the lack of coverage, poor tackling. It's like the trifecta of misery when you're talking about defense," Gruden continued. "You gotta be able to rush the passer, you gotta be able to cover some people, you gotta be able to tackle and right now they're not doing any of that very good. Beginning of the season, everybody thought that the defense was the strength. The four first-rounders on the defensive line, the first-round linebacker in Jamin Davis, they drafted a first-round corner, they had Kendall Fuller in the mix.
"Everybody thought that they were a stout group and they were gonna hold the team up for a while while Sam Howell developed and win some close games and then once Sam got going they would be competitive. And that has not been the case, it's been the opposite."
So, that is a pretty good summation of where the expectations and reality diverged to a great deal and led to the Del Rio firing. And, those problems – numerous and varying – likely point to the idea that the dismissal will not lead to different results.
Listen to the full conversation about the Commanders' defensive struggles, where the defense goes from here, what Rivera taking over the defensive playcalling brings, a possible game plan against the Miami Dolphins' high-scoring offense and Gruden briefly addresses his comments on Twitter about Del Rio.
Listen on the audio player above – and hear about Gruden's latest tweet tweaking Robert Griffin III's comments about Deion Sanders!